DANIDA SUPPORTS YOUTH SEXUALITY EDUCATION (PAGE 11, SEPT 14, 2010)

THE Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) has provided US$254,000 to fund a new sexuality education project for the youth in the Northern Region.
This follows the realisation that many young people were falling prey to the effects of unguarded sexual behaviour, not because of their own stubbornness, but largely as a result of their ignorance about their sexuality.
The project, dubbed the Innovative Sexuality Education Project (ISEP), therefore seeks to improve on the knowledge and awareness of young people about their sexuality to enable them to take control of their lives.
The ultimate goal of the project is to empower the youth to make the right choices about their sexual life in order to reduce the incidence of teenage childbearing and HIV and AIDS.
The ISEP is being implemented by a Ghanaian gender-based advocacy organisation, the Northern Sector Action on Awareness Centre (NORSAAC), in collaboration with AXIS, a Danish non-governmental organisation.
Launching the project in Tamale, the Director of NORSAAC, Mr Alhassan Mohammed Awal noted that the ISEP was a build-up of a similar project known as the Community Based Sexuality Education Project.
He said under that project, over 12,000 young people in schools and communities in Savelugu, Tamale and Tolon/Kumbungu were assisted to learn more about their sexuality through the use of dialogue-based tools.
“The project helped change the perception of those young people about their sexuality and this enabled them to make wise decisions about their sexual life,” he explained, adding that “They also learnt to appreciate and manage the changes they experience within the adolescent stage.”
Mr Awal said in some of the schools and communities, young people blamed teachers and parents for failing to give them adequate information on their menstrual cycle.
“It is also sad to state that in most of the schools in the rural areas where the project was implemented, at least one girl dropped out from school as a result of pregnancy. Should we tolerate this situation,” he asked.
Mr Awal said the ISEP would target over 300,000 young people in the Tamale metropolis and the Karaga, Savelugu/Nanton and Tolon/Kumbungu districts.
He said the project would also conduct a research on young people’s sexual behaviours in the Northern Region to influence the interventions to improve the sexuality needs of the young people.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Bukari Mabengba, commended DANIDA for its contribution to the country’s efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
He also urged NORSAAC to continue to initiate measures to improve on the reproductive health of women and children, since they formed a larger part of the country’s population.